What kind of shape is Japan’s economy really in?

Proponents of Western capitalism like to speak of the rival Japanese economic system as having failed, and refer to Japan as having ‘lost decades’. But is this actually true? As it turns out, the ‘dead’ stock market harms neither Japanese consumers nor the protectionist Japanese economy, and talk of Japan’s lost decades is based on an oversimplification of what economic growth actually is – it can’t be reduced simply to GDP growth.